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2014: A year of survivors of sexual assault telling their stories

Focus should be on victims

Workers scrape a wall which had a publicity photo of former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi in the broadcasting corporation's Toronto offices on Monday October 27, 2014. (Chris Young/ Canadian Press)Photo: Chris Young/CP

This year didn’t teach us anything new about sexual harassment and assault, but it underlined some painful truths: that rape is still depressingly common, that false accusations are exceedingly rare, and that predators can commit monstrous acts regardless of how prominent, well-liked or respectable they might be.

Perhaps no scandal shook Canadians’ assumptions about the scope of the problem more than the serial accusations against Jian Ghomeshi, currently facing several criminal charges for what women say was violent and abusive sexual behaviour from the radio star that seemed incongruous with the gentle, progressive public persona he had worked so hard to cultivate.

The CBC is not the only public institution where the rot has set in.

This year also brought numerous stories to light of impunity on Parliament Hill. Staffers say they were harassed by bosses, MPs allegedly assaulted by other parliamentarians, and journalists preyed on by colleagues and sources. Similar stories have surfaced at Queen’s Park in Ontario, likely extending to other legislatures in the country.

Stories of sexual harassment and sexual assault are common on Parliament Hill. (CP/Sean Kilpatrick)

Watershed moments are often a media cliché — when certain subjects that were previously taboo suddenly become part of everyday conversations — but there is no denying that something changed in the way we talk about sexual harassment and assault following a year when the sheer number of stories has forced us to reckon with the problem like never before.

There are 460,000 instances of sexual assault in Canada each year, the vast majority of which never get reported to police. This fall, thousands of women took to social media to share their own reasons for why they had stayed silent, using the hashtag #BeenRapedNeverReported.

Many others who spoke up said they didn’t report their assaults because they were doubted or blamed for what happened. Few believed the authorities would listen, or they feared going through the system would compound an already traumatic experience.

The burdens we put on survivors often stop them from coming forward when they are assaulted, which may explain why it took years and even decades for some people to come forward with allegations against Ghomeshi of sexual violence, and allegations against comedian Bill Cosby of drugging and raping numerous women going back decades.

Actress Lucy DeCoutere, the first woman to publicly accuse Ghomeshi, said she didn’t report the incident because there was no physical evidence he had choked her, and any investigation was likely to become a he-said-she-said affair.

“What could I possibly report?” she told CBC’s The Current. “I know enough to know that there would be so many holes in my story that they would say, ‘We got nothing for you, honey.'”

Model and actress Beverly Johnson says she was drugged and assaulted by Bill Cosby in the mid-80s, at the height of the comedian’s fame, but is only now finding the strength to go public with her story. In a Vanity Fair essay detailing the assault, she described her anger and her sense of hopelessness at the time of the alleged incident.

“How could I fight someone that boldly arrogant and out of touch?” wrote Johnson. “In the end, just like the other women, I had too much to lose to go after Bill Cosby.”

Former Liberal MP and deputy prime minister Sheila Copps, now retired from public life, revealed this fall that she was raped as a young provincial politician in Ontario. The reason she stayed quiet for so long was tragically familiar: “I never reported it. I just felt I’d dealt with it and that was the way it was.”

Former deputy prime minister Sheila Copps seen at her home in Ottawa in December 2012. (Chris Roussakis/Postmedia)

It takes great courage to speak publicly about an assault. But it also takes great courage simply to live with the terrible knowledge of what was done, to stay quiet for whatever one’s reasons may be and attempt to heal.

The predators who inflict such dehumanizing pain on others, though deserving of consequences, are not deserving of our focus. 2014 showed us that it’s survivors of such violence who most need our attention, as well as our empathy, support and respect. That starts with a simple declaration to anyone who says he or she has been the victim of abuse: “I believe you.”